Wii games may boost surgeon performance

Playing
Nintendo's Wii console improved the performance of surgeons learning operations involving tiny cameras and instruments in a study that suggests the device could have a role to play in educating doctors.

In a trial among 42 post-graduate surgeons in Italy, those who were asked to play Wii games such as Tennis and a 3-D battle game an hour a day, five days a week for four weeks did better at 13 out of 16 measures on a surgical simulator than those who didn't play the games, researchers from Sapienza University of Rome wrote in the journal PLoS One.

Trainee surgeons commonly hone their keyhole surgery skills on computer simulators such as those made by Cleveland-based
Simbionix USA. However, the expense of the machines, combined with the difficulty of a technique that involves maneuvering tiny operating tools through very small incisions, as well as increased risks of lawsuits, have raised the need for training outside the operating theater, researchers led by Gregorio Patrizi from the university's department of surgical sciences wrote.

“It is hard to suggest that academic institutions adopt a video-game console as a didactic tool for surgery,” Patrizi and colleagues wrote. “We hope this may be a trigger to develop dedicated software aimed to help young surgeons as the economic impact of these consoles is significantly lower than traditional laparoscopic simulators and they provide basic didactic value.”

The researchers said they chose the Wii for the trial because its motion-sensing interface resembles the movements required for keyhole surgery more closely than other video-game consoles.